


Torch

by gleefulmusings



Series: Bits and Pieces [3]
Category: Glee, Wonder Woman (1976)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, M/M, surprise crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 07:16:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1596260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gleefulmusings/pseuds/gleefulmusings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt discovers what he thought was true was wrong in almost every respect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Torch

Kurt Hummel was merrily skipping about the attic of his home, spring cleaning to within an inch of his life.

His love for housework had nothing to do with his being gay, but rather his adoration of a space free from clutter. All too often he had begged his father to go through the detritus that had collected, but Burt Hummel had always been something of a packrat. When his myriad possessions began taking over the house, Burt would simply banish them to the attic and forget about them.

Now that he had married Carole, however, two more people were being added to the Hummel homestead. Burt understood that he would have to part from some of his beloved junk so that Carole and Finn would have room for their belongings. He had unleashed Kurt upon the attic with the simple instruction to get rid of whatever Kurt thought should be tossed. This was akin to turning his son loose in the Mall of America with a black American Express.

So Kurt happily sorted, boxed, trunked, dusted, and swept for hours on end, his mood lifting with each item tossed into a trashbag or a box for charity, until he was now all but giddy with success. He had cleaned the windows with vinegar and newspapers, vacuumed the attic fan, wiped down the walls, and noted pockets of insulation that would soon need to be fixed. He thought he had maybe another hour to go until everything was brought up to his strict standards of organization.

Okay, so he was a little OCD. The smell of Murphy's Oil Soap and Pine-Sol were almost orgasmic. Who needed opiates when you had cleaning supplies?

Whistling while he worked and dreaming of his own Prince Charming, who happened to be overly blond, named Sam, and dressed only in jean cutoffs with a popped button fly, this had been one of the most relaxing Saturdays he had spent in months. His father and stepmother were shopping forever at Home Depot and his stepbrother, Finn, had either been kidnapped or allowed his will to be subverted and was spending the day with Rachel Berry and her fathers.

The important thing was that they were all out of his house.

Tomorrow there would be grocery shopping and cooking and laundry and a host of other homely pursuits which pleased Kurt to no end. The truth of the matter was that he would have been very happy spending the rest of his life keeping a house. He didn't consider it women's work or girly or anything so ridiculous. He loved the idea of his own space, of being the king of his very own humble castle.

He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply, almost positive he could smell the scents of Wisk and Downy calling to him. He sighed deeply in satisfaction.

 _Soon_.

Only one corner remained and Kurt decided to attack it with vigor. Dragging a trashcan with him, he opened the first box only to discover his father's porn collection. Shuddering with revulsion, he began taking handfuls of magazines and depositing them where they belonged. After all, he was doing his father a favor; he certainly didn't want to see Carole's reaction if she had happened upon this ode to the past.

He wasn't so much a hypocrite, however, that, had the situations had ever been reversed, he would hope his father would do the same for him. Of course, he would have been mortified if his father had ever stumbled upon his own collection of porn.

He smirked.

Of course, that would have required Burt Hummel to be computer literate enough to unearth it, not to mention the numerous passwords Kurt had installed. His brow furrowed and he frowned. He wouldn't put it past Finn to go snooping, though. He shivered. His crush was long over, but ever since he had begun dating Sam, Finn had been slightly...unnerving with his questions, particularly about gay sex.

Kurt _wanted_ to believe that Finn was merely attempting to overcome his homophobia, which was admirable. Still, he couldn't help but wonder if Finn's interest was more prurient, the thought of which was noxious.

He shivered.

Praise Karen Walker that Finn had never learned that his stepbrother was no longer a virgin. It was bad enough that Finn interrogated Sam at every opportunity; Kurt couldn't imagine what Finn would do if he found out he had slept with Noah.

Kurt closed his eyes and hummed with satisfaction. He was completely in love with and devoted to Sam, of course, but Noah had been a stellar and enthusiastic lover. In truth, Kurt was glad he had lost it to someone who was so uninhibited and carnal.

He smirked.

It might even be worth Finn's inevitable wrath were he to let it slip that Noah had been the bottom during their one night of unbridled passion; well, really, it had been insanely hot monkey sex at Santana's house while her parents were out of town. Just the _idea_ of watching that dim, confused look in Finn's eyes dawning with horrible comprehension was a masturbatory fantasy all on its own.

He took the opportunity to page through one of his father's old _Playboys_. In truth, he wasn't all that impressed. All of the girls looked generic, probably because they had all been to the same surgeon, whom Hef most likely kept on payroll. He very much appreciated feminine beauty, but it was absent here. These overinflated Real Dolls couldn't hold a candle to Brittany, Santana, Tina, Mercedes, or Quinn. Hell, he imagined that even Rachel looked better naked.

Then he realized he was thinking of a naked Rachel Berry, which sent him leaning over the trash can and dry-heaving.

After he calmed himself by imagining his face buried in Sam's tight and firm ass, Kurt made short work of the rest of the pile, including a bag of rather questionable items that he immediately decided he had never seen. There were just some things a father and son were not meant to know about each other. He finally whittled away the dreck down to a singular trunk.

He tilted his head and frowned. He couldn't remember ever seeing this before. His eyes narrowed as he nudged the trunk with his shoe. What material was this? It looked like metal, but it wasn't aluminum, despite being a comparable weight. He frowned more deeply and dropped to his haunches to study it more carefully. Thankfully he didn't have the quads of a normal teenage male. His were muscular and lean and looked great wrapped around Sam's waist.

Kurt stopped and breathed heavily, trying to banish the images of a naked Sam. He didn't truthfully understand why he should do any such thing, because a naked Sam was truly the eighth wonder of the world and everyone should be so privileged to gaze upon the magnificence. But they weren't because Kurt would cut them.

With a machete.

Sam liked that Kurt was so possessive of him. Kurt liked being possessive.

What was he doing again?

Oh, right. Mystery trunk.

He leaned closer, examining it for some of kind of closure or keyhole, but couldn't determine any method of opening it. He was considering a crowbar when he placed his hand atop the trunk as leverage to hoist himself up.

He stared as the metal beneath his hand began to glow. He quickly removed his hand, studying it and finding no damage, and the trunk opened itself.

This was highly irregular.

He was alone in the house, in the attic, which now seemed quite spooky, and a self-opening trunk seemed to be grinning at him and demanding he unearth its secrets. He suddenly wondered where Scooby and the gang were, because this was something right out of that old cartoon.

Sam kind of looked like Freddy. Hm.

_Mmm. Sam in an ascot._

And nothing else.

Casually wiping away some drool and absently wondering if he was in fact obsessed with Sam Evans - and who _wouldn't_ be? - the trunk then opened itself further, displaying its contents.

Kurt blinked and reached down with a hand, pulling back a golden tiara. He stared at the ruby inlaid in the center. It was easily five carats. Burmese, he thought. Well, Myanmar now. Whatever.

He rubbed the jewel absently as he peered down once more into the trunk, his eyes widening. Was that...

No, it couldn't be!

Just as he was about to reach back in, he noticed in his peripheral vision that the wall immediately to his right was fucking _glowing_.

Cautiously, he turned, startled to find the old mirror hanging there didn't offer his reflection but instead his grinning grandmother.

"Hello, my darling."

He stared, his mouth falling open. "Katrine?" he whispered, his confusion obvious. "What are you...what is this? What's happening?"

"What this is," she said slowly, "is your destiny."

He quirked a brow. "This is by far and away one of the most interesting hallucinations I've ever had. Not that I've had very many hallucinations, if at all." He cocked his head. "Well, except for that time April Rhodes gave me liquid courage, which was really just grain alcohol she had made in her bathtub." He shook his head to clear it. "So, how are you?"

Katrine laughed, the sound surprisingly girlish. "Oh, darling, you have no idea how long I've waited for this day."

"Oh?" Kurt asked. "Is there any particular reason you've decided to reach out and touch me via mirror? I know service with AT&T is negligible, but this might be carrying things too far." He pursed his lips. "Am I actually conscious?"

"You are indeed," Katrine replied, tone now more serious. "I couldn't approach you before now, Kurt, not until you had set yourself on this path. It was the last thing I promised your mother."

Kurt flinched and was unable to hide it. Even now, he didn't like discussing his mother. Not with his father, not with his grandmother, and not even with Sam. In fact, the only person with whom he spoke about his mother was, surprisingly, Finn. Finn could be remarkably sensitive when it suited, and it did when the subject was deceased parents.

He also knew that he was the only person with whom Finn spoke about his father, Christopher. In fact, it was those shared discussions which had led them to becoming as close as they now were. Those discussions had then segued into other, deeper topics. Kurt could say without compunction that Finn was arguably one of the few people who knew him well. He also knew that, because of that closeness, the lines of their relationship had blurred somewhat, especially for Finn. However, Kurt had been content to ignore it and would continue to do so.

"Is this about what's in the trunk?" Kurt asked.

"Yes," his grandmother quietly answered.

"It's real, isn't it," he said, defeated. "It's not just a Halloween costume or a memento of sexy times."

Katrine's brows raised. "Sexy times? Really, young man?"

He ignored her, looking back down into the trunk. "This has nothing to do with me," he said, more to himself than his grandmother.

"On the contrary," she said, "it has everything to do with you. The world needed her then, and it needs you now."

Startled, he stood upright and twirled on his heel, facing her. "You _must_ be joking."

"I'm not," she said, voice grave. "When I said the contents of that trunk were your destiny, I wasn't being facetious, Kurt. This was always meant to be."

"And had she lived?"

Katrine sighed. "Had your mother lived, she would be here with you now, explaining everything, and probably sooner than this."

"I can count on one hand the number of times you've bothered to involve yourself in my life," he said flatly, "yet you expect me not only to swallow this yarn, but literally to wrap myself up in it?" He shook his head. "Grandmother or not, you don't have that power over me."

"No, I don't," she said quietly. "I cannot compel you to do anything, Kurt, but the thing about destiny is that the harder you fight it, the harder it will push back. I don't know when nor how, but there will be a reckoning for whatever decision you make. I beg you to make the right one. Whatever you choose, I will support you unconditionally, but I can't guarantee what will happen should you go down the path you're now considering."

"Did Dad know?"

She nodded. "Of course. There were no secrets between your parents, Kurt. I didn't want her to tell him, but she did, and that was the right choice. I underestimated your father; your mother never did. I was never more happy to be wrong."

"How long do I have to decide?"

"That's up to you," she said. "I would never demand you make a decision right now. Think about it, discuss it with Burt. You wrote me of your young man, Sam. Perhaps you should talk to him. If he's anything like your father, he would make a worthwhile ally."

"Is Sam in danger?" he asked anxiously.

"I don't see why he would be," she said, tone soothing. "In the long run, he has nothing to do with this. I suggested it only so that you wouldn't be made to feel so alone, as your mother did before your father."

He was silent for a very long time. Katrine patiently waited.

"I could never wear this," he said at last. "It was hers; it was never meant for me."

"That's not quite true," she said cautiously, "but it will allow you discover that which is yours. You only have to allow it."

He looked away. "Why did she die?"

Katrine drew in a sharp breath. "She's not dead."

He turned blazing eyes toward her. "What?" he hissed.

Her eyes were filled with tears and compassion. "I don't know where she is. I've searched for her for years, but have never found her. But I know she lives, Kurt. I am her mother. You know her body was never found."

His brow furrowed. "But the accident. The car was totaled."

"Kurt, do you really think a car accident could kill Wonder Woman?"

He swallowed heavily. "Then where is she?" he barked.

"I don't know," she repeated. "She was taken and hidden somewhere, I suspect. I don't know where and I don't know by whom, but I know that she's waiting for us. For you."

"If you haven't been able to find her, how the hell could I?" he roughly demanded.

"The tools are right there at your disposal," she said, nodding toward the trunk.

"Then why haven't you used them?"

"Because they weren't meant for me," she patiently explained. "They were made for her, and when she disappeared, somehow, they were convinced she was truly gone, so they returned here to wait for you."

"Does Daddy know she's alive?" he whispered, voice tiny.

"I never told him," she admitted. "He was so devastated by her apparent death, if I had offered even one shred of hope, he never would have stopped looking for her. His life would have become about his missing wife, not the son who so desperately needed him."

Kurt closed his eyes and pondered that very real truth. "He's married again. He loves Carole, and so do I." He paused. "This is unfair of you."

She nodded. "Yes, it is, and for that, I'm sorry. However, the facts are what they are, and you must decide what to do with them."

He stared down at the floor, considering her words, debating them within his mind, but his choice had already been made. If his mother was alive, he was going to find her. If someone had taken her from him, he would kill that person.

"How do I start?"

"Pick up the costume," she said. "Put the tiara on your head and the golden belt around your waist. They will adjust themselves to fit you. Then, close your eyes and think about your mother, about what she means to you. Think about Wonder Woman and the hope she brought to the world."

Slowly, he reached down and picked up the legendary costume of Wonder Woman, surprised by its weight. He could feel the magic within it, and it called to him. He thought of his mother, of everything she had meant to him, of all of the words he had wanted to say to her, of the hugs he still wanted to give her, of the hole in his heart that had been born the day she died, never closing.

He thought of Wonder Woman, of all he knew about her, everything he had read and seen on television and the internet, of the hypotheses and speculations conspiracy theorists still offered to this day. He thought of the interviews he had seen with the people she had saved. He remembered all of the exploits about which had been written, of the governments toppled and the dictators dethroned.

"Now hold out your arms," his grandmother whispered.

Wordlessly and with eyes still closed, he complied.

"Spin! Quickly, Kurt, as fast as you can!"

Again, he complied. He felt the costume torn from one hand and the lasso from the other. He felt his clothes disappear only to be replaced by something else, some remarkable fabric that felt like armor yet was lightweight and tailored for him alone. He saw sparks dance behind his eyelids as a loud crack boomed throughout the attic as though something had exploded.

"Call me when you need me," Katrine whispered. "Go to your nation's capital. Find a man named Steve Trevor at the Interagency Defense Command. He will help you." She blinked back tears. "May the gods keep you close, Wonder Boy."

She then disappeared from the mirror.

Scoffing at the ridiculous name, Kurt immediately halted and opened his eyes, which soon bugged out.

The golden tiara had morphed into a golden circlet atop his head, the ruby still at its center. The Golden Belt of Strength was cinched around his waist, the Golden Lasso affixed to it. His entire body was...ensconced in some type of body suit colored a deep navy, with a matching mask covering his eyes and nose. The suit was iridescent and shimmered with his movements. His feet were shod with sturdy boots the color of crimson, or blood. They stopped just above his calves.

"This is almost awesome," he remarked, before frowning. "I assumed I'd look even gayer, but this is bordering on the masculine." He smirked. "Finn would be so proud."

He turned and examined the attic. "How do I know that I'm really...wondrous?"

He shrugged, bending down and grasping the leg of an old sofa the size of a Plymouth. He lifted the entire thing off the floor with no effort. He raised it above his head and wasn't taxed.

"Neat gift-with-purchase."

He walked over toward the window overlooking the backyard and threw it open, looking down at the grass almost twenty feet below.

"Well," he said, swallowing heavily, "this isn't exactly leaping a building in a single bound, but..." He frowned. "Wait, that's Superman." His eyes widened. "Is he real, too?"

Gathering his courage, he leapt from the window, glad that there were no houses behind his and that his nearest neighbors were on vacation. He landed on his feet, knees slightly bent, and resisted the urge to vomit. He looked up at the open window

Had it really been so easy?

He shook his head, turned, and began running, faster than he ever thought possible for a human.

Was he still human?

He leapt over the pool, clearing it easily, and disappeared into the woods that bordered his property, speeding up when he heard his father's car pull up in the driveway. He sailed over fallen trees, following the sound of the distant river, which he would follow south, and then east.

"Get ready, Steve Trevor. Whoever the hell you are."

His legs pumped faster, his surroundings rushing by as though he were on a train.

"I'll find you, Mom."


End file.
